When Thresher Maws Attack
by girl undone
Summary: The Sole Survivor of Akuze didn't realise there would be a Thresher Maw during Grunt's Rite of Passage. Will Commander Shepard keep calm and carry on or fall into a waking nightmare? Garrus, Wrex, and Joker also appear. Rated for language and violence.


A/N: Special thanks to my new beta, EternityEmbracer!

The tune Shepard sings is a line from 'Joseph's Coat' from the musical 'Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat'.

* * *

Tuchanka's nuclear-winter landscape was giving Commander Shepard tunnel vision. Everything from the rubble of cities upon ruined cities, to the ashy grey skies seemed to bleed together in one colour of unending gloom. She would have wished for a thunderstorm to clear the sky if she thought it would do any good. Instead, she focussed on the charred remains of the klixxen scattered about the arena. Perhaps using incenderies on exploding bugs wasn't the wisest thing she had ever done in her life, but it was sure fun to watch.

Grunt appeared to agree. He was grinning at her in the way only krogan can- all teeth and blood-lust. "Activate the keystone again, Shepard!"

She smothered the smirk she felt creeping on her face. "See, Garrus, Wrex was right. He doesn't need lapdances, he needs gore. He's more like an adolescent human at the age of eleven, not fourteen."

Garrus looked down at the bloody remains of the varren from the first wave and the sizzling bits of klixxen from the second. "At least they don't smell this bad."

Shepard snorted in failed effort to stop her laughter, "I'm not even going to _touch _that comment with a ten-foot pole attached to my Viper."

Garrus opened his mouth to ask what he said, but he was cut off by the adolescent krogan, practically begging, "Activate the keystone again, Shepard!"

Shepard just shook her head as she punched the keystone. "Eleven, in a toy-"

The ground shook violently. How had Shepard thought Tuchanka's iron-grey air and clay given her tunnel vision? She could see so clearly now, as though even single mote of light was giving off vibrant colour.

"Cover, now! Now, now, now! The pillars!"

She pushed- or made a damned good effort of it- the turian and krogan toward the study looking pillars behind her. The ground shook again, and she whipped her head around to follow the path of the cracking land.

Garrus gave her shoulder a shake, "Shepard, your barrier!" She never remembered to activate it. Miranda constantly complained about the waste of installing her with an L5 implant. Shepard always insisted she wasn't a biotic, had no plans of ever becoming one, and since she wasn't born that way, just what else did they alter? She'd cross her arms and raise her eyebrows at Miranda, maintaining full eye contact that most sapient creatures found to be downright uncomfortable until the woman who spent two years rebuilding her would drop her gaze and remind her that she was lucky she didn't have a control chip in there too.

Shepard cursed and suddenly glowed an eerie blue. "I said get down! Garrus, get in position with your Viper! Grunt, I need you NOT to charge. Do you understand me?" Her words came out loudly but, like her biotic barrier glow, there was an eerie calm with them. "It's a Thresher Maw. As your Battlemaster, I am ordering you not to charge. I am ordering you to take cover." She never took her eyes off the shaking ground as she slid down into a crouching position, swiftly changing her M-76 Revenant assault rifle for her own Viper and securing the incendiary ammo. "Vakarian. Armour piercing ammo. Aim for or below the mouth. I've got the eyes."

Emotion should never come into play in a battlefield. He ignored the fact that she hadn't called him by his clan name in over three years and the strange calm in her voice as she barked orders. He just nodded and locked the ammo into place.

The acid rained down chartreuse where they stood not ten seconds before. It took out anything they might have used for cover. Grunt admired his Battlemaster for insisting on using the pillars instead. He fired round after round from his shotgun, shouting battle-cries, glowing with blood rage, completely unaware the thrashing, acid-spewing maw was being systematically slaughtered by his silent human commander and tensely focussed squad-mate. He didn't notice their lack of usual battle-banter that sometimes annoyed him for reasons he couldn't voice. He cried, alone, "I. Am. KROGAN!" as the maw finally went down, for the first time not echoed by 'scoped and dropped' or 'bagged and tagged'.

Shepard knew the maw was dead but she realigned and fired her Viper until the heat sink popped out, useless and spent. Her barrier had since faded and her armour returned to its dull charcoal sheen. Garrus leaned forward as though to help her up, but she jumped to her feet as though rejuvenated with stims. Her grin was ghastly, inhuman even to her two alien squad-mates. But whatever was about to be said between them was interrupted by that irritating krogan, Gatatog Uvenk, and his krantt.

Garrus had to hand it to Shepard. When she spoke, most sapient beings- save for the old and new Council- tended to listen. However, the Uvenk clan seemed to agree with the Council's stance on Shepard's public speaking skills. She, Grunt, and Garrus were forced to voice their dissent with weapons instead of words. Orange blood splashed along the grey landscape as Gatatog and his krantt fell.

Shepard stood still for a moment, surveying all the colours of blood and ash and acid that coloured the grey landscape. An old show-tune went through her head. As she jerked her head, indicating the two should follow her back to Urdnot Camp, she sang out a bar, "It was red and yellow and green and brown and scarlet and black and ochre and peach..."

Grunt tried to lower his gravelly, excited voice as best a krogan- even an adolescent krogan- can do. "I think our Commander is crazy. _Amazing_, but crazy."

Garrus cringed. Not because he was concerned Shepard overheard, but because of a far-off memory.

* * *

_He was under the Mako, as usual.__"__ Why do you always sing in the Mako? Is it a human thing?" She was leaning against the Mako, as usual._

_She laughed, but not that genuinely happy laugh he had heard once. A brittle, hard laugh. He was disappointed, but hoped it didn't show. "Well, yeah, actually, a lot of humans like to sing when they're happy, when they're driving or when they shower-"_

_"When they _shower_?" he interrupted her, his voice full of disbelief._

_Now she snorted in a derisive tone. "Yeah, when they think no one can hear them. Why, don't turians?" Her voice was teasing and... something he couldn't quite place yet from a human._

_"No. We're all military-trained. Five minutes in, five minutes out."_

_"Damn," she drew the word out slowly, "I hope that five minute rule doesn't encompass all your turian traits." That tone again. Was she... Spirits! She _was _flirting with him!_

_He ducked his head and narrowly avoided tearing off a mandible in the process. "Uh, so, you're... happy when you're driving the Mako?" She never appeared to be particularly happy when driving the Mako. She always seemed to be-_

_"Hell no!" she laughed. Truly, genuinely. It was worth almost losing a piece of his face and most of his pride. "I sing when I'm pissed off."_

_

* * *

_

Commander Shepard kept a small smile on her face as Grunt was made a member of clan Urdnot. She thanked the Shaman. She joked with Wrex about the one breeding request put in for her. When her old friend began to congratulate Grunt on taking down the Thresher Maw and recount his tale of how he did it during his Rite of Passage, Shepard suddenly remembered there was something she desperately needed to buy from Ratch's tiny shop. Wrex was too engaged in storytelling and Grunt too enthralled to question this, but Garrus stared after her. Surely she wasn't going to buy the rancid pyjack meat? Hadn't she already bought everything they needed from the under stocked kiosk? He debated following after her, lest she was after the ryncol, already taking half a step back from Wrex and Grunt, when a deep, rumbling voice interrupted his thoughts.

"Are you two mating yet?" Apparently Wrex wasn't too engaged with impressing the latest member of Clan Urdnot.

Garrus buried his face in his gloved hand. "Wrex, don't start this again."

"Shepard told me 'rex' means 'king' in some dead human tongue. Heh. Dead human tongue. I'm king around here anyway. I can ask you what I want, turian."

Garrus groaned. He wished he was buying ryncol right now, much good it would do him. "I bet it's real good to be king. She might not be your commander anymore, but you could still show her some respect. She's not one of your women who you keep penned up-"

Wrex's features drew into furious lines. He rose from his throne and roared, "We do not keep our women 'penned up'! We protect them and the few young we have since **you** gave us the genophage!"

At the word 'genophage' every krogan in ear-shot turned to look at their leader face off with the suspect turian that fleshy human insisted on bringing along with that creepy blue-eyed tank-bred krogan who just had to be the only krogan since Urdnot Wrex himself to take down a Thresher Maw.

Garrus bristled, facing his sometimes-friend with a stony expression. "It would have been pretty hard for me to do that," he shot back, "considering I wasn't alive yet."

Shepard abandoned Ratch's Wares and Urz, devoid of rancid pyjack meat or ryncol, to launch herself between her crew-mates, new and old. "Hey! Come on now! Wrex, you know how I feel about the goddamn genophage! We've discussed this! I've heard enough of you two fighting endlessly in the Citadel elevators over this!"

Wrex, Garrus, and especially Grunt stared at her blankly. She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing back the memories of waking up in Project Lazarus. "Right. I know. That was a long time ago. Look, Wrex, I appreciate everything you and the Shaman have done for Grunt. You and your clan have been more than hospitable to us all." It took all of Garrus' willpower not to laugh, but the commander actually looked sincere. He rearranged his grin back into a frown, somewhat painfully still. "We'll be aboard the _Normandy_ for tonight, but we have more business to discuss tomorrow" She held out her hand, knowing the krogan could crush it if he wanted to. "I wish you'd come with us, but I know you have more urgent duties. Good night, Wrex."

Wrex sat back down on his rocky throne, calm as only Shepard could make him. He gingerly- for a krogan- gripped her hand and said, as he always did and would. "Shepard."

The ride on the Kodiak back to the _Normandy_ was uneventful. Grunt was gushing, lavishing praise on himself and a tiny bit on his Battlemaster and squad mate. His 'Battlemaster' kept nodding and smiling at him, but grew quieter the closer they made it to the ship. His turian squad-mate couldn't take his eyes off his human Battlemaster. _Clan Chief Wrex must be right. And those turians don't even have a quad! _

Shepard couldn't remember the last time she had been this happy to step aboard a ship. Any ship. Just a few more feet to the elevator and a slow dance to her room...

Joker opened his mouth with a well-prepared joke about Wrex, but Shepard barely heard him. She remembered to smile a moment too late and tugged on his cap before she waved off Kelly entirely.

"I thought it was quite funny, Jeff."

Joker had turned around to watch Shepard absently pat Grunt on the back and shake her head at something Garrus said to her. She looked... shell-shocked. It was bizarre. "Never mind, EDI," he muttered, then raised his voice. "Hey, Garrus! What's up with the Commander? She looks like she got kissed by a husk." Sure, he sounded jaunty, but he looked concerned under his baseball cap.

Garrus said two words that gave all the answers to anyone who knew or heard anything about Commander Shepard's Alliance career prior to her Spectre status, the hunt for Saren, and the destruction of Sovereign. "Thresher maw."

* * *

Commander Rachel Shepard was exhausted. She forgot to tell EDI to shut down. The pressure seals on her greaves refused to unclasp. With a violent curse and an unnecessarily hard yank, the last bit of armour, and the woman herself, fell into a heap on the cold floor. She drew knees up and clasped them to her chest, shivering violently. Staring at her fish tank, Rachel only saw the clear blue sky of Akuze in it's stead.

_Akuze was her first real mission. She was twenty-three and eager, if still a bit mystified that this was all real. _

_She never thought she would be off the streets, off earth, much less in the Alliance. She never thought she'd make it through Basic. She never thought she'd fall in love on shore leave with a soldier from Northern England who could drink her under the table and still be sober enough to hold her newly-cropped hair back as she vomited throughout the night. _

_She never thought they would be placed in the same squad some months later, for that first mission, breaking regs with little thought or care, until the entire unit had discovered why the colony on Akuze had seemed to vanish. That she would see her first love dissolved in front of her eyes by those fucking overgrown earthworms that spewed acid that ate through an entire colony, their own barracks, their armour, like hideous pus-coloured fire through a forest of kindling._

_It was on the third day, when Rachel and the two other surviving privates she had bunkered down with decided it was now or never. They were running out of ammo, out of food, out of faith that anyone would rescue them. She remembered Piers__**,**__ her beautiful boy with a face that belonged in a genteel 19th century novel set in the moors of the land from which he hailed. He who made her appreciate fine voices so much. As she __readjusted her aim with her sniper rifle, she could hear his deep, melodic words telling her to aim for the head. Always the head. _

_She remembered how she had sat in the middle of a flat, grassy field, unable to move from her position when the Alliance rescue team answered the distress beacon two days later; two days too late. The abject horror and stunned disbelief on their faces when they found her alive, silent, and still, surrounded by melted corpses of her teammates and maws riddled with holes. She recalled their falsely calm, cajoling words as they tried to pry the rifle out of her hands before she felt the sharp burn of sedatives coursing through her veins and the last plunge into sweet, merciful darkness she would have for a very long time. _

Rachel Shepard scrubbed her hands over her face, looking at her digital display for the time. She had been curled up on the hard floor for hours in her under-armour. Every single muscle in her body screamed as she stood up. She heaved a sigh, ignoring the flashing '3:47 AM Zulu' as she headed for her shower.

"Sole survivor," she spit bitterly, loudly, not giving a damn if EDI was recording or The Illusive Man was getting his kicks by watching her. "As though it's an honour, a privilege, or a goddamn choice."


End file.
